


Follow You Down (I Promise)

by Ocean_Born_Mary



Series: Forever (I Promise) [2]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Depression, Drunk Athos, M/M, Pre-Slash, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-30
Updated: 2014-07-30
Packaged: 2018-02-11 02:45:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2050545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ocean_Born_Mary/pseuds/Ocean_Born_Mary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You jump, and I swear to God, I swear to God, Athos that I will fish you out and I will tear you limb from limb.” </p><p>In which we examine the promise Athos made Porthos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Follow You Down (I Promise)

**Author's Note:**

> This is for those who left lovely kudos and comments on If I Have to Walk the World (I Promise).
> 
> Thank you!
> 
> P.S. In case any of you were wondering…I don't own The Musketeers. Oh well.
> 
> P.S.S. I'm serious-if any of you want to play in this sandbox with me, consider this to be my blanket permission. I have one more snapshot written, and then I'm working on a 'sequel' of sorts, but I'd love to see someone else play around with the boys too!

            Today.

            Today had been bad.

            One cup of wine.

            Two.

            Lifeless eyes, blue and wide and oh, so shocked at their fate are staring up at him from the mud.

            Three.

            He’s barely fourteen.  Hair is just starting to curl.  Someone’s taken him by surprise.  Gutted him like a fish.  His blood has mixed with the dirt and rain.  He’ll perpetually look stunned—he’s been killed by someone he trusted. Perhaps someone that he loved.

            Four.

            They had been riding and joking, mocking the Red Guard who Porthos had swindled purse and sword and even clothes from last night in an unending game of cards, leaving the man shivering and cold in the wet spring evening.  He’d pulled to a halt, nearly fell from his mount, because, for a second, just one brief, terrifying second—it is Thomas alone in the mud.

            He’s gasping and gurgling, frightened as he takes his last breaths.

            Athos has not seen this before—these precious last moments of life.  This child is still alive. Not Thomas then. But too far gone to save, even he does not need Aramis’ subtle hints to see that.

            So he bundles the child up, uncaring of the mud and blood that is soaking his cloak, his tunic.  Athos leans over, blocking the poor soul from the rain, bends down to place a tender kiss to the frozen brow.

            “Hush now child.  Go to sleep.  There will be no more pain.”

            Five. Six. Seven.  Another bottle. 

            She hadn’t even let him say goodbye. Thomas had been gone before he’d even turned his steed for home.  Cold and stiff by the time he’d breeched the doorway—Athos should have been there. Should have held him and guided him onward into the next life, the after life, the place without a brother life.

            Eight.

            He chokes on the ninth glass and slams it down. Picks up the bottle and drinks deeply.

            Porthos and Aramis are hovering in the periphery, but the boy is gone ( _not Thomas_ ), Athos once again unable to save him.  He seems to consistently fail at this particular task.

            His hands spasm around the lifeless shoulders, and he takes off his cloak, tries to cover the small body the best he can. Aramis is kneeling beside him, whispering in Spanish—an unfamiliar prayer, but Athos appreciates the effort. Porthos pulls the corpse away, the mud making a large squelching sound as it tries to claim the child as its own. There’s a fleur-de-lis on the boy’s neck, visible as Porthos drapes him over his horse, and Athos wonders at the kind of soul that would leave a child to fend for themselves. Abandon them to the Court of Miracles (and how ironic that seems).  To him it seems blasphemous—he’s been denied this, there will be no children in his future, does not understand how someone would throw such precious cargo away.

            The second bottle is replaced by a third, the barmaid’s hand lingering suggestively on his arm.  On a different night, in a different world, if he was a different person, Athos may have accepted the invitation (despite her cracked front tooth and the strange rash on her neck), but even she deserves more than a broken man.

            Treville does not ask what they are doing when they bring the body through the garrison, and then to the cemetery. But he stands with them as they take turns digging the grave among the bodies of those who have died in service. Athos is good at this part. He’s done it before. Put the body in the ground, cover it with dirt.

            It’s the saying goodbye that is the hard part.

            In this he fails miserably and so orders a fourth bottle. 

            _“Olivier!”_

            Someone is waving to him from the door. Though his eyes are blurry from the drink and his stomach rolls, Athos is certain that he knows who it is. “Thomas.” 

            _“Olivier, come see what I’ve found down by the river!”_

            “Mother doesn’t want us playing by the river, today,” he mumbles, throwing a myriad of coins that he’s fished from his pocket onto the table and lurching to his feet.  “She’s having a dinner party tonight and we’re supposed to play that piece we’ve been practicing.” 

            _“You know that I don’t need to practice.  And Mother will never know if we roll up our leggings and sleeves.”_

            He cannot deny his brother anything.

            Athos does not feel the rain or the hail as he stumbles behind Thomas’ fleeting figure.  His brother is urging him on, through the dark.  Most of the lanterns have blown out; the blacksmith’s sign is clacking loudly against the stone.  But Athos does not notice.  He’s making his way across an endless field. 

            _“It’s a kitten, Olivier.  I think it has lost its mother.  It keeps crying and yowling.  I told him that you could help.  That you fix everything.”_

            That’s right.  A little black thing.  They’ll nurse it back to health and it will live in the stables, hunting the mice and rats that spend their nights gorging themselves on oats.   Thomas will name it Athos (“A good, strong name,” Thomas declares.  “One of my names,” Olivier complains, but he lets Thomas have his way), and it will live happily until the day that Thomas dies. Athos doesn’t know what happens to the cat after that.  Just knows that it has disappeared. 

            Thomas himself has disappeared. Athos climbs the wall to try and get a better view, hears his brother calling from below.

            _“Down here, Olivier!  Athos is down here! Come see!”_

            He lifts a foot as his brother beckons. (It will be right to give himself over to the swell of the water—he cannot deny Thomas even this).

            Is stopped by the feeling of a strong hand, rough and worn with callouses, squeezing his neck.  For a second he can’t breathe, but the pressure doesn’t lessen and he figures out how to draw air around it.  The fingers are certain to leave a ring of dark prints tomorrow, bruises black with blood. 

           “You jump, and I swear to God, I swear to God, Athos that I will fish you out and I will tear you limb from limb.”

            Athos blinks.

            It is dark.

            He is wet.

            Thomas is gone.  Dead.

            And he is alone, foot hovering over the rushing Seine, drunk and desperate to jump into that abyss. 

            Lightning flashes, the silhouette of Paris bright in the sky, and Athos slips.  He’s expecting to feel every bone break upon the water, to suck in the frigid liquid and float away into nothingness.

            But instead he’s thrown upon the rough cobblestones. Pain shoots up his back, immediately dulled by the amount of alcohol in his system, vaguely he realizes that he’s in a puddle.  His trousers are wet.

            Before he can figure out how he got there, Athos is flying through the air (into the water? Yes? Please?), and then he’s pressed against something warm, and solid, and dry.  Athos shifts, tries to see where he is, but the band around his chest tightens into a steel vise, so he lets himself drift, wonders if this is what it is like to die (hopes that it was this easy for his brother and for his lover…)

            “Oh, God, Athos,” the wall under his cheek shudders. “Oh God.  What were you thinking you stupid, stupid man?”

            “I…I slipped?” he answers weakly, voice muffled by the cloth against his face.  He doesn’t understand what is going on.  Just a minute ago he was on his way to find Thomas.  Now he’s being smashed against an unyielding, but surprisingly comfortable wall.  Later, Athos thinks he might be floating.

            After that, as he retches into a bucket by his head, throat burning and stomach in knots, head pounding as tears are torn from bloodshot eyes, Athos wishes that he had slipped a few seconds sooner. (Knows that he has missed his chance, that he has lost Thomas forever, not even the ghost of his brother is left to be found).

            Eventually the vomiting stops.

            The headache recedes.

            And Porthos is standing there, shoulder holding up the mantle in Athos’ bedroom.  His empty bottles have been lined up neatly by the door.  His bed sheets are clean.  The fire has been nursed into life, the soot marks that covered the walls scrubbed away.

            “Get out,” he croaks.

            Porthos crosses the room in two giant strides, lifts him up, and pins him to the wall.  “Don’t you ever do that again.”

            “Get out,” Athos can hear the whine in his own voice, his head falls forward, too heavy and full of fuzz.  God, he needs a drink.  Porthos catches it in one large hand, squeezes his chin between thumb and forefinger.  It is just enough on this side of painful to clear Athos’ head.  To make him angry.  “I said get out!”

            But Porthos won’t budge, no matter how much he shoves or struggles and eventually he is limp, spent and wasted. He can feel the hopelessness building in his chest, choking him.

            “Why didn’t you let me go,” he whispers into Porthos’ collarbone.  “Why won’t you just let me go?” 

            “Who are you hangin’ on to, Athos? Who are you so desperate to follow?” Porthos replies to the crown of his head, hot breath warming his face and making Athos think, briefly, of happier times. 

            “Just let me go…”

            “Look at me.” Porthos commands, and despite his best effort to keep his gaze downward, Athos finds himself searching out those dark eyes.  “I don’t know who you’re so desperate to get to, but you listen to me.  If you drive yourself into death, know that I am following you. I will not rest until I find you.”

            “Following…following me…” confusion plays across his face, he doesn’t understand….

            “Promise me you won’t do it again.” Porthos’ lips drop to his brow, whisper the words, tattooing them across his brain.  “Promise me.”

            Athos finds his head falling backwards, lips parting, legs spreading… “I promise.  I…” Porthos’ lips are hovering just over his own…and there is a noose falling over his neck, going to strangle the other man.  “Now get out.” 

            Porthos steps back, looking just as startled as Athos feels.  He hasn’t felt this way in…wants to beg Porthos to stay, to reach out, to…but he sees the rope starting to tighten around Porthos’ neck.

            “I promise, Porthos,” Athos finds himself whispering.  “Now, please go.”

            And as Porthos shuts the door behind him, Athos finds a new reason to pick up the bottle, and fall apart.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for stopping by!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
